Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

Romney Blames Loss on Obama’s ‘Gifts’ to Minorities and Young Voters
By ASHLEY PARKER
A week after losing the election to President Obama, Mitt Romney blamed his overwhelming electoral loss on what he said were big “gifts” that the president had bestowed on loyal Democratic constituencies, including young voters, African-Americans and Hispanics.

In a conference call on Wednesday afternoon with his national finance committee, Mr. Romney said that the president had followed the “old playbook” of wooing specific interest groups — “especially the African-American community, the Hispanic community and young people,” Mr. Romney explained — with targeted gifts and initiatives.

“In each case they were very generous in what they gave to those groups,” Mr. Romney said.

“With regards to the young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college loan interest, was a big gift,” he said. “Free contraceptives were very big with young college-aged women. And then, finally, Obamacare also made a difference for them, because as you know, anybody now 26 years of age and younger was now going to be part of their parents’ plan, and that was a big gift to young people. They turned out in large numbers, a larger share in this election even than in 2008.”

The president’s health care plan, he added, was also a useful tool in mobilizing African-American and Hispanic voters. Though Mr. Romney won the white vote with 59 percent, according to exit polls, minorities coalesced around the president in overwhelming numbers — 93 percent of blacks and 71 percent of Hispanics voted to re-elect Mr. Obama.

“You can imagine for somebody making $25,000 or $30,000 or $35,000 a year, being told you’re now going to get free health care, particularly if you don’t have it, getting free health care worth, what, $10,000 per family, in perpetuity, I mean, this is huge,” he said. “Likewise with Hispanic voters, free health care was a big plus. But in addition with regards to Hispanic voters, the amnesty for children of illegals, the so-called Dream Act kids, was a huge plus for that voting group.”

In the 20-minute call —which also featured an appearance by Neil Newhouse, the campaign’s pollster, Spencer Zwick, the national finance chairman, and Mason Fink, the finance director — Mr. Romney was by turns disappointed and pragmatic, expressing his frustration that he’d failed to defeat Mr. Obama on Election Day.

“I’m very sorry that we didn’t win,” he said on the call. “I know that you expected to win, we expected to win, we were disappointed with the result, we hadn’t anticipated it, and it was very close but close doesn’t count in this business.”

He continued: “And so now we’re looking and saying, ‘O.K., what can we do going forward?’ But frankly we’re still so troubled by the past, it’s hard to put together our plans from the future.”

He added half-jokingly that the close-knit group, which excelled in fund-raising but was ultimately unable to propel Mr. Romney into the Oval Office, could even help with “perhaps the selection of a future nominee — which, by the way, will not be me.”

“We’re looking to see how we go forward with an effort to maintain a connection between all of us, to meet perhaps annually, and to keep in touch with a monthly newsletter or something of that nature, and to stay connected so that we can stay informed and have influence on the direction of the party,” he said.

Still, Mr. Romney, ever the data-driven former consultant, offered a brief post-mortem analysis of where he and his campaign had fallen short. Last Wednesday and Thursday, he had convened informal what-went-wrong sessions in his Boston headquarters, where he and a small team of senior advisers pored over the numbers with Mr. Newhouse. And on the call, Mr. Romney also echoed a theme from the campaign trail, saying that while Mr. Obama “made a big effort on small things,” his message had been about “big issues.”

“Our campaign, in contrast, was talking about big issues for the whole country — military strategy, foreign policy, a strong economy, creating jobs and so forth,” he said. “And by the way, as you’ll hear from Neil, our strategy worked well with many people, but for those who were given a specific gift, if you will, our strategy did not work terribly well.”

On the call, described as a “spin and grin” by someone who dialed in, Mr. Romney also made sure to thank his national finance team.

“I know how much work you did,” he said, at the outset. “It is not easy to do what you did, all the calls, all the efforts, all of the organizational work, the fund-raisers you hosted. It was well beyond anyone’s expectation and I appreciate it very deeply.”

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

I've fucking had it with this fucking idiot line of reasoning. You cannot win an election with nothing but minority votes. Why the fuck did roughly half of white people also vote for him?

39% is roughly half? The reason why this keeps coming up because there's no doubt that shifting demographics contributed to an Obama victory. Bush won in 2004 with 58% of the white vote and Romney wasn't able to win with 59% of the white vote.

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

Originally Posted by summerkid

39% is roughly half? The reason why this keeps coming up because there's no doubt that shifting demographics attributed to an Obama victory. Bush won in 2004 with 58% of the white vote and Romney wasn't able to win with 59% of the white vote.

It's the implication that Obama's supporters were bribed for their votes that's preposterous. It also shows that Romney was telling the truth when he disparaged roughly half of the country as a bunch of freeloading bums looking for handouts. If this is how they want to rationalize their defeat I'm all for it.

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

Originally Posted by summerkid

39% is roughly half? The reason why this keeps coming up because there's no doubt that shifting demographics contributed to an Obama victory. Bush won in 2004 with 58% of the white vote and Romney wasn't able to win with 59% of the white vote.

Are you really this dense? It's ridiculous because the people sharing their theories about minority turnout are saying that minorities will vote for a candidate because minorities just want free stuff and don't want to work. The common line of thinking has been, "Well, maybe if we offer more handouts we'd get more minority votes." That's incredibly insulting.

Originally Posted by RandyInHeaven

Devin - how does it feel to know that there are still more women in the world that would fuck me at this very moment than would fuck you?

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

Originally Posted by summerkid

39% is roughly half? The reason why this keeps coming up because there's no doubt that shifting demographics contributed to an Obama victory. Bush won in 2004 with 58% of the white vote and Romney wasn't able to win with 59% of the white vote.

Would "nearly half" have precluded your attempt at being cute? Yes shifting demographics are obvious, the point is you cannot win with with only the minority vote.
4 of 10 white people (who are 65% of the country) voted for Obama. What was their incentive? What did they have to gain from Obama's abject pandering to ONLY minorities?

You know why shifting demographics contributed to an Obama victory? Because demographics are fucking shifting. This is not rocket science. Obama is not conjuring minorities. They actually exist.
And demographics always laced with bullshit anyway. The fact that the number of people in this country that self-identify as "pure white" is in decline (proportionately) is not interesting.

Romney is trying to imply that Obama is TRYING to turn this country into a latino-centric country. The country is turning more latino on its own (and the distinction between latino and white is diminishing at the same time). Romney's just fucking sulking because he would rather that not happen.

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

Originally Posted by HotHamWater

Are you really this dense? It's ridiculous because the people sharing their theories about minority turnout are saying that minorities will vote for a candidate because minorities just want free stuff and don't want to work. The common line of thinking has been, "Well, maybe if we offer more handouts we'd get more minority votes." That's incredibly insulting.

All I did was state statistics. Romney lost the minority vote in part because they failed to explain how their policies would help minorities. He absolutely failed in having a discussion about immigration reform because of the xenophobes with in his own party, he failed to have real discussions about how school choice can improve our education and offer inner city kids more and better options than the shit schools they are forced to go to.

Jack, I don't disagree with you but I just don't think 39% is roughly half or nearly half of the population other than that we agree Obama didn't conjure up anything demographics shifted and Republicans should have seen it coming.

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

Originally Posted by summerkid

39% is roughly half? The reason why this keeps coming up because there's no doubt that shifting demographics contributed to an Obama victory. Bush won in 2004 with 58% of the white vote and Romney wasn't able to win with 59% of the white vote.

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

Originally Posted by summerkid

Jack, I don't disagree with you but I just don't think 39% is roughly half or nearly half of the population other than that we agree Obama didn't conjure up anything demographics shifted and Republicans should have seen it coming.

General US stats are worse than useless. If you look at the white vote by state it tells a different story. Where Obama is unpopular with whites he's WAY unpopular. In the NE states he actually carried more than half the white vote, on the west coast he's effectively even amongst whites. It's the deep south where he's overwhelmingly unpopular, and he's not very popular with whites in the midwest. Basically, in areas where the racial divide is most significant(read the subtext), he did poorly amongst whites. The rest of the country was neutral.

This wasn't necessarily an issue of him pandering to minorities. I submit that he was fucked some areas no matter what he did.

And I don't believe Bush/Kerry 2004 is a particularly useful analogy here.

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

lol

btw I was reminded of this little graphic the other day too. Now true all it really says is that more densely populated areas require less infrastructure per capita than less populated ones,
but the point is the reddest states wouldn't be even as well of as they are today without the money raked in by the bluest. You split em up and those red states would wind up third world. They're more than willing to take government money.

poor New Jersey. I seriously doubt many donations from the red states are coming back to them right now.

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

Originally Posted by jackstraw94086

btw I was reminded of this little graphic the other day too. Now true all it really says is that more densely populated areas require less infrastructure per capita than less populated ones,
but the point is the reddest states wouldn't be even as well of as they are today without the money raked in by the bluest. You split em up and those red states would wind up third world. They're more than willing to take government money...

On a trip to Montana (pop 900K) some years back, we stopped at a gas station, and when the owner saw our plates, he gave us this big "Why You Should Move to Montana" spiel: Montana has no sales tax; Montana has a property tax rate of less than 1%; Montana has insanely low vehicle registration fees (buy and register your RV/trailer/truck/expensive car here folks!); Montana lets you burn your trash in your yard. (As a CA native with an inborn fear of wildfire, that last one really got me.)

So we looked at each other, and then at him with raised eyebrows, and asked the obvious question, "uhhh, how do you pay for all the infrastructure... you know, roads and schools and fire and police and stuff?" And he smiled and said, "keno parlors!" Ahahah. Nope. Don't think so.

BTW, I like Montana. It is beautiful.

Last edited by HowToDisappear; 11-15-2012 at 10:25 AM.

Originally Posted by PotVsKtl

See that guy in the background talking loudly about crab cakes? That's you.

Re: Fuck the Republican Party.

This is a monstrous scandal. The biggest since Watergate. Brave Americans murdered this fall in the Middle-East and our so-called president has no answers about why it happened!

Of course the fact that it happened as the president was obviously focused on running for a second term couldn't have had anything to do with it!

And the White House has admitted that the news of the deadly attack also caused the president to break off from his golfing schedule. Boo-hoo!

It's a disgusting cover-up and we need to find out exactly how and why it happened!

• What did the president know and when did he know it?

• What was the Secretary of State doing?

• How come there wasn't proper security at an American compound in such a hotbed of Middle-Eastern terrorism?

• How come multiple warnings about the vulnerability of the facility were ignored? Especially after the attacks in that same area earlier this year.

• How come a CIA warning just three days before the attack was ignored?

• What role, if any, was played by the head of the CIA -- a man with plenty of war-time experience that should have helped the U.S. avoid this catastrophe?

The president has offered up platitudes: ''There are no words to properly express our outrage and, I think, the outrage of all Americans at the despicable act.'" Yeah big deal...

And the best that the vice president has said was that the U.S. "would not be cowed by terrorists."

None of that explains why security was so lax.

None of that explains why the president didn't act to prevent this.

And why he hasn't explained it all and sacked everyone whose negligence led to such a tragedy.

We need Watergate-style hearings immediately! And then this president should be impeached!

Yes... the murder of 241 U.S. Marines in their Beirut compound this October is a massive disaster. And we demand that President Reagan be held accountable and impeached!

The above blog was written in November 1983 -- but was misplaced until today.

FACT: 241 U.S. marines were killed in the Beirut barracks bombing on October 23rd 1983 -- as Ronald Reagan was gearing up to run for re-election in 1984. (The attack caused Reagan to cut short one of his many golfing vacations.)

FACT: The Reagan administration had been warned that the Beirut barracks was vulnerable following the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut just 6 months earlier on April 18, 1983. But nothing was done to beef up the Beirut barracks security.

FACT: The CIA under Director Bill Casey -- who got his first experience serving during World War II -- showed no leadership. And he was unable to explain why the intelligence service he headed failed the USA

FACT: The Long Commission (report published in December 1983) investigated the bombing attack and found that senior military officials were responsible for security lapses and blamed the military chain of command for the disaster. The Commander-In-Chief was not held accountable.

FACT: Despite evidence that emerged about the Reagan administration's negligence, the Democrats did not challenge the President or his administration on the topic for ONE ENTIRE YEAR AFTER THE ATTACK. The Democrats in the House and Senate were patriotic and supportive of the USA and the President for a full 12 months after this terrorist attack. (Just as the Democrats were in 2001 after 9/11).

FACT: The Democrats did not try to score political points against the President and his administration in the aftermath of the deadly tragedy. They put their country before their political agenda...